Gills, Gills, Gills

I got to go out Saturday morning for the
first time in a month. SowBug, illness and
Continuing Education took care of three weekends.
I had the itch bad and it was time to get out.

I headed off to a pond with no promises of
when I would get home. I did get out on the
pond about 6:30 am. There was a slight breeze
and I could see a little activity around the
edge of the pond. I got the canoe off the truck
and loaded with everything. I then went down the
pond and cast to the edge to see what I might
get before launching the canoe. With fish close
to the edge I like to try to cast to them before
I spook them. No such luck.

I finally went out in the canoe and started
working around the pond. I finally got to the
place where we had sunk a few tree branches
in about 8 feet of water. By casting over this
area I thought I might get a crappie or
two. I tried several casts with several
different flies and had no luck.

I then decided to try a few other flies and see
if there might be a bluegill around. The first
one I tried was a marabou leech that I had used
earlier in the year. When I cast this fly out and
moved it back with a few strips of about 5 to 6
inches and then let it drop the gills would take it.

These were gills from about 8 to 12 inches long.
Most were from 8 to 10 inches but very thick.
They also had an attitude and wanted to dive deep
and turn a lot of circles. I had caught several
gills when I decided to move and see if I could
find a crappie or two.

I fished all over the pond, at all depths and at
all speeds. I used 15 different flies and did not
get a single crappie. I did get a few bass and
picked up some gills as I moved around. I finally
gave up and headed back to the place where I had
been catching the gills in the first place. This
is a pond that needs to have fish taken out of.

The best fly I found to use was the leech fly.
I continued to use it. I did find that I had to
let the fly drop a little deeper before I started
to retrieve. My guess was this happened because
the sun was higher in the sky. Most of the fish
hit while the fly was dropping.

At this time I did start to loose some of the
fish as I was swinging them into the canoe. I
was also doing several LLR (long line releases).
I might have been hooking a few crappie at this
time, but they did not take any of the crappie
flies that I tried to use.

What brought an end to all of this was that the
wind started to really kickup. This pond is in
a valley so when the wind hits 15 to 20 mph the
funnel effect of the hills makes it much faster
across the water.

It was a fun day. Hope you can get out on the water.
~ Rick ziegeria@grm.net